improve alertness, memory, motor skills, decision-making, and mood. All while cutting down on stress, carelessness, and even heart disease.

And

With Americans averaging fewer than seven hours of sleep per night—and around 20 percent suffering from sleepiness during the day, according to a recent Stanford University study—many companies have turned to the humble nap in an attempt to stave off billions in lost productivity each year.

Apparently “napping” has become mainstream (in some big corps like Nike and Google)… Unfortunately, my company has yet to adopt nap-time during working hours.

Kyocera, the Japanese IT equipment and industrial ceramics manufacture, has come up with an interesting way to keep its buildings cool and green carbon emissions low – yes, you know it – “edible curtains” (aka ‘green curtains’)

Kyocera first started growing Green Curtains at its Okaya Plant in Nagano Prefecture, Japan in 2007 as part of its energy conservation / global warming prevention activities, and since then they have also been adopted at other Kyocera Group locations throughout Japan. (Kyocera press release)

Turns out that Kyocera was able to confirm that

the green curtains can decrease the temperature by as much as 15 degrees C (27 degrees F).

In addition,

the green curtains are working to absorb an estimated 23,481 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions, which is roughly the same amount that can be absorbed by 761 cedar trees.

And

the green curtains also give workers a bounty of cucumbers, peas and bitter gourd called goya, which land on their cafeteria menus.

Like this:

…Ebonics translators (?!?). Can I just mention that Firefox just added a red squiggly line when I typed “Ebonics” with a lowercase “e”.

Right, so I digress.

…the agency [Drug Enforcement Administration] is serious about needing nine people to translate conversations picked up on wiretaps during investigations, Special Agent Michael Sanders said Tuesday. A solicitation was sent to contractors as part of a request to companies to provide hundreds of translators in 114 languages.

Pretty incredible (and not in a good way) that Ebonics is being considered a language rather than slang.

6. You can’t attend a meeting or go to dinner without hiding your BlackBerry under the table and secretly responding to e-mail. Worse, you don’t even care that other people wonder what the heck your thumbs are doing down there.

Haha. If only…

10. Somebody cuts you off in traffic, and you immediately search your steering wheel for the ‘Thumbs-Down’ button. The good news: Even when you’re short on thumbs, you still have two middle fingers.

The rest of the signs are really funny. I recommend you check them out!

A few months ago, while at a convention for work, my iPhone was stolen. My immediate reaction was shock and despair. My phone contained my whole life, it was an extension of me. Surprisingly though, after I accepted the fact that my phone was gone…I actually felt fine, great even. Suddenly I was in control…. If I needed to get a hold of someone, it was under my terms. If someone needed a question answered via text or email, they’d have to wait.

Not having a cell phone is a way of getting the world to run on your time. A lot of powerful people are already on to this. Warren Buffett doesn’t use one. Nor does Mikhail Prokhorov, the 45-year-old Russian billionaire who owns the New Jersey Nets. Tavis Smiley doesn’t own one, either.

While it was an interesting experience, to be without a phone…as soon as I returned home from my trip, I decided to buy another iPhone.

Like this:

Next month (September), in an attempt to make online ads less irritating, sites like like: MSNBC, Yahoo & Hulu, will let the consumer choose the ads they want to view.

The new ad-selecting tool is called ASq and may step up development of the $3.1 billion global video ads market, already online advertising’s fastest-growing segment. While it may not end unwelcome commercials for car insurance or weight-loss pills, it may help websites command higher rates while letting marketers attract more eyeballs and improve consumer targeting.

I’m anticipating a bunch of “superbowl” worthy online video ads…bring on the creative.